Talk:Walensee

Requested move to Walensee

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was page moved. —harej (talk) (cool!) 04:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

---

Lake Walen → Walensee — Lake Walen seems to be a "fabricated proper name". Both Encyclopedia Britannica and Encarta know Walensee. Britannica does not know "Lake Walen", Encarte associates "Lake Wallen" (two l's) with Walensee. "Lake Walenstadt" seems to be used as well. Google Scholar in English texts: "Lake Wallen": 21, "Lake Walen": 33, "Lake Walenstadt": 37, "Lake Wallenstadt": 25, "Walensee": 332. Suggestion to return to the endonym until a unique English exonym is found in recognised reference works. --Foroa (talk) 14:16, 27 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding undated comment added 07:08, 2009 July 29.

• Support per evidence; seems similar to the problems we had with "Lake Chiem" some time ago. Knepflerle (talk) 09:04, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support weakly. Lake Walen is clearly not our invention, but Walensee seems to be far more common, even looking only at English references. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. "Lake Walen" is commonly used in English language texts about the lake, e.g. by Switzerland Tourism (offical tourist office) and local ones Amden-Weesen. One could consider "Lake Walenstadt" as another option, but I think it's a bit dated. Britannica doesn't have an article on "Walensee" and old spellings in Encarta are unlikely to be corrected as it was discontinued. I don't think we should move it around just because some didn't bother checking. BTW I shared Knepflerle's concerns about "Lake Chiem". -- User:Docu at 22:20, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
  • • Both those examples also use Walensee. The Switzerland Tourism site uses Walensee on the navigation column on the left of the page, and the Amden-Weesen page uses Walensee in the main text (second paragraph). Whether these sites with "English usage" such as "Lake of Constance" and "Walensee - manifold and close to nature!" (manifold what?!) are really representative of normal English usage is a further matter. I find Britannica's four uses of Walensee in article text is more indicative and persuasive. Knepflerle (talk) 16:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
      • If the article title is "Lake Walen", this doesn't mean we don't mention any other variants. I even add some in the first place! -- User:Docu at 17:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
  • If the French is Lac de Walenstadt, as our sister WP says, we should certainly consider "Lake Walenstadt". We need not accept it; we may well find that it is dated, although Google Scholar shows instances from last year. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:15, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm not quite sure why fr.wp would come in, but I'm sure you will explain. BTW Foroa is mainly trying to fix an undiscussed changed made at commons (that broke links to commons everywhere, e.g. here and in the Dutch Wikipedia). -- User:Docu at 07:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
      • French usage comes in, because (like Lake Constance) English may have copied it; comparative tests should therefore include Lake Walenstadt as one of the comparanda; nothing more. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:24, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Obviously, it's good to know where it comes from. If it isn't received, it matters less though. -- User:Docu at 17:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

• It's hard to comment here if the initial request gets updated. This gives the misleading impression that some agree with the current wording of the reasoning. Do we have to delete all comments made since the initial request? Really disruptive. -- User:Docu at 07:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC), updated 07:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
  • For those following - the Google Scholar figures were added to the move request after most of the above discussion had taken place. As it's supplementary and complementary to the request, it's hardly what I'd call "really disruptive", but each to their own. I agree that it would be better to record further data and evidence in the discussion body from here on though. Knepflerle (talk) 16:44, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support Walensee appears to be the most common use outside of Wikipedia. The whole thing is complicated by the Swiss National Tourist Office using both versions on the same page, which seems to be the only reason the page was at Lake Walen in the first place. As there are so few references to the lake, there seems no justification for using what appears to be an artificial Anglicisation. Skinsmoke (talk) 12:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Data

Please put data here

Discussion

Please add long comments and threads here

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It's a bit early to move this, the discussion is still open. No additional information has been provided yet. The google counts looks impressive, but looking at them in detail, it appears that they consist of references in German and "Lake Walensee". Mere counts are never really a good measure. -- User:Docu at 05:29, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

...and your scanty evidence for Lake Walen also uses Walensee and is taken from sites with sketchy English at the best. Harej had good reason to close it as he did, and you shouldn't be doing any moving back as an involved admin. You should have asked another uninvolved admin to take a look rather than moving it back yourself. If you're unhappy with a decision, asking for outside input is the way forward as you well know. Knepflerle (talk) 13:46, 3 August 2009 (UTC)